Restore Us Once Again To Unity

"The solution to what is wrong with the body of Christ is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. God is at work to restore us once again to unity that has been fractured and ruined by sin. Unity cannot be negotiated. We can’t have unity by our own resources or by being nice people. Unity is only achieved by dying to our sins and living to God, having spirits and mind renewed to understand God’s plan for redemption.”

Fr. Francis Martin
The Life Changer: How you Can Experience Freedom, Power and Refreshment in the Holy Spirit, St. Bede’s Publications"

Disgusting and Outrageous

Our Lord is under attack again on a HBO show called "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Fox News covers it here. In the episode, a picture of Jesus is urinated on and is followed by other forms of ridicule such as claiming the picture is weeping. I wrote the head of HBO last night to complain. Do you ever feel like our voice is just never heard. Check Patrick Madrid's blog also for more on this and also a link to HBO to voice your outrage.

Procrastination

Reformation Sunday Sermon

I found this on Patrick Madrid's blog and I think it is absolutely amazing. A Protestant Preacher, preaching on Reformation Sunday, about the tragedy of the Reformation. My hat is off to this pastor and I pray that someday he will realize that nothing is more important than being in proper relationship with the Church that Christ established.

Harden Not Your Heart

"“God is a jealous God, and he will not compete with others interests. He calls today, loud and clear, just as he did in the times of the apostles and throughout history. ‘O that today you listen to his voice! Harden not your hearts’ (Psalm 95:7-8).”

Sr. Ann Shields, S.G.L.
Deeper Conversion Extraordinary Grace for Ordinary Times, St. Anthony Messenger Press"

Soak In This One For A While

When then, eternal Father, did you create this creature of yours?
You made us for one reason only.
In your light you were forced by the fire of your love
to give us our being in spite of the evil we would commit.
Oh, unutterable love, even though you saw all the evils
Your creatures would commit against your infinite goodness,
You acted as if you did not see, and set your eye only on the beauty of your creature,
With whom you had fallen in love like one drunk and crazy with love.
You are the fire, nothing but a fire of love, crazy over what you have made.

Saint Catherine of Siena

Thank you, Mike!

I'm Hunting For A Quote

Maybe you can help me. I love Saint Catherine of Sienna. She has meant so much to me for a number of years now. I heard a quote from her writings a while back, and I've been looking for the source ever since. In the quote she says the Christ loves us so much that He is like a drunken lover in pursuit of us.

I found this today that refers to the same quote, but it's not quite the same. But I thought it was beautiful:

And I shall clothe myself in your eternal will,
and by this light I shall come to know that you,
eternal Trinity,
are table
and food
and waiter for us.

You, eternal Father,
are the table
that offers us as food
the Lamb, your only-begotten Son.

He is the most exquisite of foods for us,
both in his teaching,
which nourishes us in your will,
and in the sacrament
that we receive in holy communion,
which feeds and strengthens us
while we are pilgrim travelers in this life.

And the Holy Spirit
is indeed a waiter for us,
for the Spirit serves us this teaching
by enlightening our mind’s eye with it
and inspiring us to follow it.
And the Spirit serves us charity for our neighbors
and hunger to have as our food.

- Catherine of Sienna

Preach It Sista

Fundamentalist Bonfire

You might be a red neck if . . . you're one of those KJV only folks who have no clue who or why we have the Bible and wouldn't know an Early Church Father if he met one. This is one of those stories that gives Christianity a bad name.

There's Nothing Worse

In my mind, there is nothing worse than the violent death of a child. Often children who are murdered are also sexually assaulted. I can't understand how anyone can cause hurt to a helpless child. Here again, we have a story of a little girl walking home from school, scrapping with her siblings and being a kid. Three days later, after unspeakable experiences no child should have to endure, her lifeless body is found dumped with refuse. (I know that the identity of the body has not been confirmed, but we all know how likely it is to be her.)

I follow these stories in the news. I pray over them fervently. I include both the victim and the perpetrator in the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I sometime find myself crying at my desk over the suffering of little ones who have never even dreamed of the perverse things that happen to them.

We Catholics understand all humanity, whether living on this earth, or dwelling in heaven, or on their journey to their eternal home, as one family. Death does not divide us. Some of us practice the spiritual act of adoption of those who are in danger of abortion or death.

Long before I ever dreamed of being Catholic, I had a friend who decided to have an abortion. I begged and pleaded with her not to go through with it. I even offered to see if I could take the baby. But nothing would persuade her to give her child life. He would have been 24 years old now. I named him Justin.

Several months back, there was a new born baby found having been dropped into the freezing cold water of one of the Great Lakes. Her umbilical cord was still attached. Can you imagine anything so awful? Newborn, lung paralyzing cold water, drowning? I named her Rachel.

Not long after that, some neighbors went to a playground after dark to hang out. In the dark, one of them bumped up against something sticking up out of the sand. It turned out to be the foot of a little three year old boy named Ty. His mother had killed him, twice. She had suffocated him and then given him CPR and then suffocated him again. I am at a loss for words.

Pray for our children. They aren't safe anywhere anymore. Their lives are Satan's targets from conception. Justin, Rachel, and Ty, pray for us.

Why Dogs Hate Halloween

There's No Place Like Home

I met this lovely Anglican couple in the gift shop at St. Thomas a while back. They said that their Priest had become Catholic and so they were visiting our Parish to see what things were like on this side of the Tiber. I gave them my missal because they were a little confused by the liturgy. I thought it was such a beautiful thing to see them there and to see their willingness to be open to the Holy Spirit's leading.

Last night my daughter told me about this article. I think it is just glorious that so many have had enough to the breakdown of moral teaching and living in their own denomination and have had the courage to turn their faces homeward. God bless them all!

Saint Isaac

Other than the Old Testament Isaac, I didn't know we had a Saint Isaac until yesterday when I read about Saint Isaac Jogues. I was really touched by his story and that of his brother Priest Saint John Brebeuf. Saint Isaac, pray for us!

Fight For The Truth

Love men, slay error, without pride be bold in the truth, without cruelty fight for the truth.

St. Augustine

Overflowing

“We are not meant to be channels, just moving things from here to there, even good things that we have heard or learned. We are designed to be reservoirs, filled to capacity with the very life of God, even overflowing. It is the overflow that becomes out ministry.”

Jim Beckman
God Help Me: How to Grow in Prayer, Servant Books

We Must Respect Other Religions

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

— Menchen, H. L. (1880-1956), Notebooks (1956)

Stolen from Steve Ray's web site.

Happy Birthday Mike!!!

I've tried to figure out how to load a link to my friend Mike's rendition of Happy Birthday on his trumpet, but I can't figure out how. But I want to wish him a Happy Birthday!

The Secrets Of Little Spiderman

This is our Little Spiderman, otherwise known as my Grandson, Isaac. He is going to show you how he defeats the evil villain.

Little Spiderman always remembers to eat all his food. He cleans his plate and when possible snags goodies off his big brother's plate and any other plate left unguarded. Here we see him slamming down some apple juice.

Little Spiderman also remembers the importance of community. Before facing off with the evil villain, he calls on his super friends to come help him.

Good lessons for all of us. Eat right and take care of your friends.

When Catholics Come To Know Him

Fr. Jonathan Morris, in his book, “The Promise” tells a touching story about a family who were what I call, “cultural Catholics.” They were people who, because of heritage and custom, attended Mass when it was convenient and did the kind of social justice things that produced an appearance of religiosity without forming a deep relationship with Christ.

One day the wife was involved in a serious car accident and was laid up in the hospital for an extended period of time. She had head injuries and was not able to speak. She was in constant pain emotionally and physically. There was very little the doctors could do to ease her pain or provide her with comfort. Her family realized that they were also helpless to provide her with any relief or consolation.

Her helplessness and immobility made her angry. Where was this God she had heard about? Where was He when she needed Him? Why did this happen to her? She was a good person. She went to Church almost every Sunday, she helped her neighbors. Didn’t that count for anything? Agitated and miserable, no one seemed able to help her make sense of her suffering.

One day, a woman who had come to visit another patient, stopped into her room. She realized the helpless state of the wife and asked if she could just pray there in her room. The wife, being unable to respond, tried to give the woman permission with her eyes.

As the woman prayed the Rosary, the wife realized that the rhythm of the prayers were comforting and familiar. By the time the woman completed the Rosary, the wife realized she was somehow less agitated, more comfortable.

The next day the woman came again and prayed the Rosary in the wife’s room. Again, the prayers brought peace to the helpless wife. Not only did the prayer provide some comfort, her pain level began to decrease. Her husband noticed the change in his wife’s eyes. The frantic, pained expression he has seen in those eyes ever since he saw her in the emergency room had disappeared and he saw a serenity that he could not explain.

The woman continued to come and to pray and as the wife began to heal, she realized where her peace and comfort was coming from. She began to see God as her source of strength. She met the challenges of rehabilitation and healing through the grace she received from those prayers.

The change came gradually and gently. Her husband, grateful for the way that God had given his wife what he could not, began to seek God in his own life. Their son, seeing the transformation in his parents, wanted to go to Church more often. Over time, through their suffering and openness to God’s help, they began to see God as the center of life rather than just an ethnic custom. Their faith came alive.

I love this story because I know so many families like this. People come to my office/shrine all the time and tell me their woes or their stories of apathy in their Catholicism. So many of them think that they are Catholic because they were born that way, but it means no more to them than their ethnic heritage. They go to Mass on Holy Days and wear their ashes or taut their Catholic experience as though it is just a hobby or a Hispanic Pride event.

My heart breaks for these people who are missing the gift that is right in front of them. They are living on the fringes of the most wonderful gift we have ever been given and they don’t even know what they are missing. But more than that, my heart breaks for the Lord, who is there before them over and over again in the Eucharist and they don’t recognize Him. Just as the Pharasies mocked Him on the cross and told Him to prove His Divinity by coming down, He is held up before them and is not known or loved. I ache for His Sacred Heart that longs to be loved by them. I ache for the Blessed Mother who stands at the foot of the cross and knows that this is the Holy Son of God who she bore in her womb and who is ignored or denied by those He loves so much.

I long to see all of them adore Him and give Him their fiat and learn to live and to love His will. Pray for the awakening of His Church. We will see the unity that He prayed for when His people come to know Him as their own Lord and King.

There Is One

There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one Chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord. It is not possible to set up another altar or for there to be another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever has gathered elsewhere is scattering. — St. Cyprian, Letter to his ClergyThere is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one Chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord. It is not possible to set up another altar or for there to be another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever has gathered elsewhere is scattering. — St. Cyprian, Letter to his Clergy

Mary's Love For Jesus

We need to ask Mary, making use of the communion of the saints, to give us some of the maternal love of Christ. We need exactly this, in fact, a maternal love for Jesus that also serves as a corrective for an excess of theologizing about him. (Taking an interest in Christology does not always mean taking an interest in Christ!) Maternal love is wholly tender, spontaneous and honest; it has no ulterior motives.”

Raniero Cantalamesa, O.F.M. Cap
The Mystery of the Transfiguration, St. Anthony Messenger Press - Servant Books

Love Is Being Willing To Suffer For The Good Of The Other

“Prayer keeps suffering in perspective, whether it is suffering we experience together or suffering we inflict on each other. For love of the other, we imitate Christ’s embrace of the cross: ‘For the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross, despising the shame’ (Hebrews 12:2). We focus on the joy of what God is accomplishing in and through us in the midst of suffering.”

Kimberly Hahn
Chosen And Cherished: Biblical Wisdom For Your Marriage, Servant Books

Isaac is Talking!

When my first daughter was born, she practically came out talking. She was saying words before the experts say kids start saying words. My second daughter was nearly deaf until after she had tubes put in her ears at 12 months and then she started talking.

When Miss Talk-a-Lot had her first son, he too practically came out talking. He keeps us in stitches with the things that come out of his mouth.

But when her second son was born I was worried. He will be two in December and up until very recently has not shown any interest in speaking. But that all changed in the last month. This weekend he was making great strides in the linguistic department. He even put his first two words together to give one of my cats an order. He said, "kitty go!"

So now his little voice is heard all over the house learning words constantly. It is so cute.

Sometime when kids start talking, they have trouble with words and they mispronounce something for quite a while. One of the cutest memories of this I have is that my daughter Sarah thought that her hand had thingers and a fum. Makes me smile just thinking about it. Kimberly called Sarah "Sherry" for a while after she was born. One of the girls called hamburgers "hangabers" for a while. Esther called broccolli "Barkley" for quite a while as well.

We all call the remote the "mote" now because Gabriel called it that. And diapers are often "dawdoos" because that was his word for them.

Did your kids create any words for your family? You can use the comment box to share their babyisms. (Spell check should love this piece!)

It Rained This Morning!

The Liturgy Is Primary

"“Law and Liturgy are inseparable. The liturgy exists for the sake of our holiness, our sanctification; and the law exists for the sake of righteousness, to protect and preserve the holiness of the liturgy. All of the Catholic morality and every line of canon law exists primarily to protect the sanctity of the sacraments. The law is ordered to the liturgy, not vice versa. The liturgy is primary.”

Scott Hahn
Swear To God: The Promise and Power of the Sacraments, Doubleday Press"

Satan Hates Us

Being a parent is a scary thing. You do you best to hand down your beliefs and your values, but there is no guarantee that your children are going to follow your example.

I happened to catch a story on the news this morning that demonstrates this to the extreme. Have you heard of “horrorcore?” It is a type of rap music that flaunts evil and murder. The lyrics describe brutal murders and macabre details about dismemberment and “disposing of the bodies.”

Now before you give me some line about how kids will be kids and it’s just a phase they go through, you need to read this article about a rapper who came to visit a preachers daughter and ended up murdering the whole family exactly as his lyrics describe.

This kids was invited to this preacher’s house by his daughter who had become ensnared in this kind of evil music and lifestyle. Imagine, a Pastor whose daughter falls away from his faith and then invites this evil person into their home. Then this evil person destroys them all in a manner that proves that Satan truly hates the human race.

Folks, pray for your kids. Talk to them about the love of God and His mercy. Make sure they know that the only way life results in peace and joy is when it is lived for the glory of God. But also make sure they know that if they get caught up in this kind of thing, that God stands ready to free them from it at the first sign of repentance.

Also, teach them to have a healthy fear of evil like this. Just as God is loving and holy, Satan is evil and destructive. His hatred for us is equal to God’s love for us. He would love to see us beaten to a bloody pulp by one of his henchmen. Teach them that it’s never too late to run to Jesus for mercy.

St. Michael, the arch angel, defend us in battle . . .

Obey Your Bishop

Obey your bishop and clergy with undivided minds. . . . Share in one common breaking of bread—the medicine of immortality, and the sovereign remedy by which we escape death and live in Jesus Christ for evermore. — St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35-107), Epistle to the Ephesians, 20

Father John Gets A Round Of Applause For His Homily

When was the last time you gave your Priest a round of applause after his homily? Well, it happens now and then at St. Thomas. Father John, who speaks the truth in love and never shrinks away from teaching the Catholic faith faithfully to his parishioners, got an enthusiastic round of applause this morning while defending the Catholic Church's stand on the sanctity of life. If you would like to hear Father John's homily, it is available through the link in the margin of this blog. It's well worth the listen.

The Past Few Weeks

It's hard to describe the past couple of months. I have one of those homes where my kids come and go as they have need and ever since the beginning of September, I've had a full house. My oldest daughter and her two boys live with me and my youngest daughter returned home on September 1st to get a renewed focus on life.

Needless to say, I've had less time to myself and even less time with my computer!

I have also found it necessary to make some personal decisions in order to bring my own focus to where I believe the Lord wants it. When you have less time, you need to make every moment count.

I won't bore you with all the details of those decisions, but I am hoping to spend more time writing. I believe that it is important that hope be shared in this time of prevailing evil.

Please pray for me as I seek to do His will.

Cartoon from 1934

Amazing Cartoon from 1934

This amazing cartoon was in the Chicago Tribune in 1934. Look carefully at the plan of action. Remember the adage, "Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it" .

Why I Must Write

I've been watching this story unfold for the past week or ten days now. It makes my want to cry to hear Mackenzie Phillips talk about her childhood. What a nightmare. The part that really makes me want to give her a hug is the reaction of her family. Unless you've been through it, you just can't imagine what it is like to have those who are your own flesh and blood choose their own safety over your well being. I pray that this woman gets real help. So many times a victim gets lost in the psychobabble and never really finds peace and healing. What she really needs is to know how God sees her and how He loathes the sin that was committed against her. Please pray for that for her.

No Price Too High

“People become Catholic because they have discovered the authenticity of the Catholic faith, generally through three different avenues: they recognize the authority of the Church; they have discovered the Blessed Mother; or they have studied the Church Fathers. The more I traveled, the more people I met, the more I began to realize that God is at work renewing his Church. He is stirring the cradle Catholics, and he is bringing in converts who have a relationship with him, a profound love of God, to build up the faith of the Church, to strengthen it.”

Alex Jones
No Price Too High: A Pentecostal Preacher Becomes Catholic, Ignatius Press